You know the broad strokes from here on out. Where things take a notable departure is in Noah's attitude, and immediate circumstances. The Bible is pretty clear that Noah's sons all had wives, and that God and Noah were on the same page about being fruitful and multiplying from day one. Here, only Shem is of marrying age, and betrothed to Noah's adopted daughter at that. Japheth is too young to think of such things even by Old Testament-era standards, and Ham is pissy that he has no woman. All of which intensifies when Noah has a vision of himself as a demon, and determines that even he and his family are so fallen that the human race must end with them, and therefore any potential grandchildren must die. It is entirely likely that a man in such circumstances could think in such a manner, especially after consenting to assist in what is basically genocide; yet to those who believe, I can see how it is tantamount to slander of a beloved prophet.

To me, however, and to Aronofsky, it is more than just the sum of its obvious parts in a universe of parameters; to see it as only the surface story is to deny it the power it has held as more than that for millennia. In the larger scheme of things, this take on Noah is one of post-traumatic stress disorder, and the burdens of doing right even when it means piling sins upon yourself. Like any soldier who must kill for the greater good, or any patriarch making sacrifices for the betterment of the family, violating conscience and eating away at soul for what must be done, Russell Crowe's Noah loses some of himself while sacrificing for the greater plan. Whether it be with family or God in mind, the things he feels he must do in service of all creation require the ultimate act of being a man, while enduring a burden none should bear. The extent you relate to that will likely determine how strongly you react to Noah...and Aronofsky, whose movies nearly always feature a semi-delusional protagonist sacrificing all for a larger cause, clearly feels that from the Genesis tale.

Crowe isn't a bad choice for the guy who can be a strong family man when he needs to, and scary psycho the next, but it is a shame that the one actor who would be even more perfect is currently, effectively blacklisted. I speak, of course, of Mel Gibson, who would likely have had less trouble getting the Pope to watch his film, and undoubtedly, sincerely believes everything herein. Winstone is fine as villain Tubal-Cain, but his character is a fundamental mistake. There isn't any need, for instance, to have him survive the flood if you're already going to play up interfamilial tensions - the narrative choice here is to have Ham ultimately choose his own exile rather to dramatically leave as a result of a nudity curse, and Logan Lerman's Ham is not only perfectly capable of playing that, but he's also given enough narrative material to justify it without the presence of an evil father figure to seduce him.

It has always struck me as ironic that most "faith-based" movies I've seen in my time, be they Christian, Mormon or Muslim, tend toward the saccharine and the sanitized, when all those faiths' actual origin tales are anything but (seriously, scripture is brutal). To the extent that artistic dissent is allowed, it seems to only be done so when based on a creative talent who explicitly professed faith, hence why JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis get the fantasy pass that JK Rowling does not, and why Mel Gibson can get an R rating and still be okayed. Aronofsky is not especially religious, but he understands the power of foundational myths. It may be asking a lot of some, but if you can avoid clinging to the literal in his movie and see the deeper emotional truths beneath, it just may move you to feel the pain of doing right, and embracing it anyway, not always knowing how far is too far.

Compared to the God's Not Dead dreck that's supposedly big in theaters right now (down in the States, anyway), I think I'll choose the Ten Commandments-style film that shoots for being an epic movie about a classic Christian tale over the alternative piece of propaganda, thank you very much.

People tend to not believe the Noah story because of the logistical impossibility of loading "all the animals in the world" on the ark, as well as the entire world flooding all at once. But think of this:

The Bible, while the word of God, was written by men. Hence, the writing is done by the perspective of the mere mortal writing. If everything is flooding as far as you could see, wouldn't you think the entire world is flooding? Plus, you gathered all the animals in the area that you know of and, again, wouldn't that be "all the animals in the world" to whomever is writing?

It wasn't like like there was Google back in BC. For the most part there wasn't as much traveling, or as far, as there is now. I find it odd that people slap modern day standards of knowledge onto people who didn't even know that the world was round yet and wouldn't for millennia.

All that being said: Noah is just a movie, not the word of God. It's also done by Aronofsky, so you know the kind of movie you're getting (psychosis and all). If you don't like movies like Black Swan, chances are you won't like a movie like Noah.

Embracing the utterly ridiculous and trying to tell a story about it is a fine thing, and can make for some great storytelling. But when you try to logic up all the ridiculousness all you've done is just completely derail the train. The whole point of fantasy is that it DOESN'T obey the natural rules, nor should an attempt be made to force it to comply.

as i was expecting depictions of crazy stuff like angels made of thousands of wings all covered in eyes and tongues spinning inside wheels withing wheels all occupying the same space and on fire

and instead i get rock monsters

also whats the point if its drug visions as the idea of your creator telling you or getting a being capable of relaying the message that he is deciding to destroy nearly all of you because he feels you've ruined what hes created for you is kind of terrifying as you cant ask for forgiveness or that people be given a second chance or try to fix the world and all you can do is what he says and hope to not be caught in his wrath

I can believe all of the animals in the world getting into a huge ark and I can believe Noah directly talked to God, but I can't believe that Noah is Australian, his wife is American, and his daughter is British. Shouldn't they all be Middle-Eastern? :)

Whether you are atheist or agnostic, you shouldn't make a movie about an epic myth if you can't resist undermining its' internal reality with rationalizations. The three options a filmmaker with integrity has are to: 1) sell the myth sincerely and wholeheartedly; 2) attack and ridicule the myth; or 3) stay the hell away from it.

The filmmakers here have chosen the "weasel way" - pay lip service to check-the-box events, but undermine the backbone of the story by making the punishment environmental instead of moral, and making the communication some bullshit druggie vision quest hoodoo instead of from God.

Biblical PTSD and treatment was covered in the Battles BC series. Basically they had to ritually isolate and clean themselves after every battle for a number of days - I don't recall exactly it's in the video. In essence it gave them time to come to terms with what they had experienced before moving on.

@sjcloudxiii Then why didn't god make a being capable of translating his word more effectively??

And the tale of Noah was basically plagiarized by early Jews from the Sumerian tale of "The Epic of Gilgamesh" which oddly enough, pretty much describes the exact thing you did "A man builds a big boat to save his family and a lot of animals when the area gets flooded, wind up on a mountain, and have to repopulate the area." They took the story, dialed it up to 11 and claimed it as their own.

Before the Bible was a book, it was scripture. Before it was scripture, it was oral history. I try not to sweat the details. Heck, the book of Kings and the book of Chronicles actually end in somewhat contradictory notes (In one, King A was an a idol worshiper who ruined everything, and King B fixed it, but then he messed with the wrong Pharao and that was his undoing, while in the other King A stopped the idol worship himself, And King B just got himself captured. You can practically see which writers where in favor of which king)

Or maybe they simply didn't want to personify God and opted to depict him in an abstract, less literal way. It's not like the movie doesn't shy away from either God's existence or actual depictions of angels.

Heaven forbid a filmmaker come up with an alternative to having a booming voice from the heavens or Morgan Freeman show up to dance to C+C Music Factory to get the point across.

But if you're absolutely certain the story is undermined by artistic choices sight unseen, perhaps this really isn't the movie for you. Evan Almighty is streaming on Amazon.

@PCabezuelo too many "fundamentalist Christians" look at the words in the Bible as something to be wielded as a weapon against those that believe different from them instead of as something to be studied and learned from for personal improvement

I couldn't find the actual commercial on-line, yet......but I think I found who they were quoting from...........

If you liked Braveheart, Gladiator, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones or Titanic, you will like Noah. If you liked two or more of the above, you will LOVE Noah. Your enjoyment increases exponentially with each movie checked above." -Kathleen Parker, The Washington Post

@JillClayburghFanHAHAH!! Amazing reply. I keep hearing a lot of people coming up with a lot of intellectually witty talk about a movie they have not seen. I get why people are so cynical about a religious movie, but wow.... people are going on and on about something they havent taken the time to watch. Its too bad because some of these people sounds smart. It would be nice to actually have a conversation with them after they have seen the movie, but no... we get to argue with them while they guestamate. BLARGH!!!

@GallenDugall Well yes, no argument there. Just find it funny that a) Christians make such a big stink about the Old Testament when really it's the New Testament they should be concerned about, and b) you never hear the Jews' thoughts on stuff like this even though, really, it's their book.

@Citrus_King Well for a normal person killing is a hard thing to do and to kill when it's not kill or be killed as they did slaughtering unarmed women and children should be quiet traumatic but then you think about how the Vikings actually found it worth mocking a person with the nick name "child lover" if they refuse to kill children and worthy of praising a person with the nickname "child splitter" if they could cut a child thrown in the air in half before it hit the ground

@GallenDugall@PCabezueloI'm not a religious person but I have huge respect for that way of thinking. As a former Catholic, I think that particular religion especially could stand more of that type of progress.

@PCabezuelo the Hebrew priest caste/families being killed off had a huge effect on the faith. Since no one else can act as a supreme authority the faith has ever after that been openly open to interpretation from the ground up. That's a big deal. If the local rabbi presents the faith in a way you disagree with you can shop around. This has mellowed the faith tremendously and forced it to be more practical for everyday life and less abstract political.